Yet another reason to hate Bush

[Super Amputee Cat]

The smirking chimp is at it again:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031115/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/forest_service_jobs_1

Spending $24 million (and counting) to save $6 million a year. Makes a lot of sense, retards.
Plus we all know that once you privatize an agency like the Forest Service, it turns to crap.


Trust me on this one: When its all said and done, this privitizatoin will end up costing us all more money that if they had just left things alone.

Mod Edit: animated gif removed.

 

[Cardinal]

Bush is using "savings" as a strategy, not as a goal in itself (otherwise we wouldn't have the excessive deficits). No, eliminating many of these federal jobs will not produce savings, and yes, it will often end up costing taxpayers more in the long run, and perhaps even in the short run. So why do it? One argument is that it creates huge contracting opportunities and big profits for politically-connected corporations.

The more devious answer is that it cripples oversight and protection of public resources. Isn't it ironic that the Forest Service, Interior Department, and Energy Department were targeted in these privatization efforts, given the degree to which Bush views their responsibilities as an anathema to his preferred approach to resource administration? (I wanted to say "rape of the environment," but I am trying to keep some balance here.) Bush's move eliminates lifetime employees who are intimately familiar with the resource and dedicated to its sound management. He replaces them with private contractors who may have little of that knowledge, and are gone as soon as the project is done. At worst, the contractor is in the pocket of the industry that wants unlimited access to the resource.

Forget about a balanced answer. There is none. Bush is a disaster who's impacts will still be regretted decades from now.

 

[Wulf9]

Not a matter of hate, but just a reasonable question. If you go through the administration decisions one at a time and ask yourself - "was that wise?" - I almost always come up with "no."

Remember at the beginning of the administration, when California had an energy crisis, and Gray Davis asked the President to stop the illegal price fixing. He said it was California's fault. Actually the price gouging was illegal under Federal law (his law). But, would you, as president, at the beginning of a recession, take down a strong part of the national economy.

Most other decisions are equally bad. How about changing from tax and spend democrats to "borrow and spend" republicans?

Or a war that probably did not need to be fought......

 

[jordanb]

It's what Cardnal is saying, it is all wise from Bush's perspective.

He wants to destroy this country's ability to govern itself (with the exception of a police state to appease the Christian Coalition and the military to ensure a healthy stream of contracts for his friends). The thing is, he can't just eliminatate all of those essential government services, so instead he sabotages them. So when you see something organisational move, like privatising the forestry service, failing to reimburse state's medicaid expenses, or turning Amtrak over to the states, he knows that's a bad move from the stanpoint of having that program provide the services it's supposed to provide, but his intention is to eliminate those services without actually cutting them (which would be politically impossible).

 

[tsc]

"where are we going and why are we in the handbasket????"

a bumper sticker quote just seemed appropriate...

 

[Rumpy Tunanator]

The thing that gets me is that we're spending all of this money to rebuild ICrack when we could be using it to rebuild US cities and create new jobs. Man this really ticks me off.